ARLINGTON, Virginia — U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) and the National
Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) are extremely disappointed in the
decision announced today to impose sweeping tariffs on imports of steel
and aluminum. We have repeatedly warned that the risks of retaliation
and the precedent set by such a policy have serious potential
consequences for agriculture. It is dismaying that the voices of farmers
and many other industries were ignored in favor of an industry that is
already among the most protected in the country.
If the United
States is taken to dispute settlement at the World Trade Organization
(WTO) for imposing these tariffs, we call on the U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR) to avoid invoking the essential security exception
under GATT Article XXI. The recent Department of Defense
memorandum made it clear that imported steel and aluminum did not
threaten its ability to acquire enough from domestic suppliers to meet
its needs. The USTR should not take the extraordinary step of invoking
Article XXI to defend what we believe is protectionism.
At
NAWG’s board of directors meeting this week, a new resolution was passed
urging the Administration to avoid imposing national security-based
trade barriers on commonly traded products. NAWG’s newly instated
President Jimmy Musick, a wheat farmer from Sentinel, Oklahoma, said “at
such an economically hard time for wheat growers, we do not want to see
trade barriers brought against us from some of our top customers who
are impacted by this decision.”
Wheat farmers battling a
market in which China holds almost 50 percent of world ending wheat
stocks can sympathize with steel and aluminum workers on the economic
effects of Chinese policies leading to global oversupply. However, we
hope that our legitimate concerns with this action are heard and taken
into consideration in this process.
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